"Orange Juice! Politics For The Rest Of Us." - 12 new articles
Irvine Councilwoman Beth Krom’s son appears to have died in a cliff accident in Santa Barbara
“The son of congressional candidate and Irvine Councilwoman Beth Krom died Friday, a little more than a week before he was scheduled to graduate from college, her campaign announced this morning,” according to the O.C. Register. The death was reported on several local blogs here in Orange County, but no one has mentioned how Noah Krom died, including the Register. Needless to say, this is a horrible tragedy. However, I am not given to sitting here without at least trying to find out what happened. I decided to search the newspapers in Santa Barbara, as Noah was a student at U.C. Santa Barbara. He was 22 years old and about to graduate. I found this item, which was posted today, on a news site:
Falls are one of the source of thousands of fatalities in the U.S. every year - at this point one has to wonder if the site where this accident occurred was well lit and whether or not guard rails were in place. And were there any other participants in this tragic death - or any witnesses? Our deepest condolences to the Krom family in their time of loss. No one ever expects to have to bury a child. It is the saddest of tragedies. Water, Water Everywhere…The 'ol H2O seems to be on a lot of people's minds these days, and as ever more people wrangle over the available resource, why not?
This time of year the City of Fullerton addresses the issue of water rates it charges the users of this commodity as part of its budget voodoo. What many people fail to realize is that not only does this water revenue go to running the waterworks, per se, but that 10% of the gross revenue is siphoned off into the General Fund to pay for salaries and benefits of people who have nothing to do with the purchase and transmission of water. In the next two years the projected amount of liquid gold is projected to be over $5.3 million, a tidy sum, click here to read more. Will Democrats show ANY courage?
The question is, will it sell to Democrats? This governators race is going very interestingly. Jerry Brown appears to have a lead among Democrats. Basically, he’s the only viable one in the race. And, he proposed a Flat Tax in his failed Presidential bid. Is it time for him to dust off what was then a very unconventional idea whose time has come? Will he? Can he overcome the Lefts addiction to taxing the rich to pay for its statist solutions?
I will say this. If Jerry Brown is the only one to propose a flat tax in the next gubernatorial election, I will vote for Jerry Brown. At least he’ll be entertaining. There are two principal arguments for a flat tax- growth and fairness. Many economists are attracted to the idea because current tax systems, with high rates and discriminatory taxation of saving and investment, reduce growth, destroy jobs and lower income. A flat tax would not eliminate the damaging impact of taxes altogether, but by dramatically lowering rates and ending the tax bias against saving and investment, it would boost an economy's performance. However, the most persuasive feature of a flat tax for many people is its fairness. The complicated documents, instruction manuals and numerous forms that taxpayers struggle to decipher would be replaced by a brief set of instructions. The entire tax code could be based on two simple postcard-sized forms. This radical reform appeals to citizens who not only resent the time and expense consumed by filing their own tax forms, but also suspect that the existing maze of credits, deductions and exemptions gives a special advantage to those who wield political power and can afford expert tax advisers. No longer would the tax code penalize success and discriminate against citizens on the basis of income. Politicians would lose all ability to pick winners and losers, reward friends and punish enemies, and use the tax code to impose their values on the economy. Moreover, infringements on freedom and privacy would fall dramatically, since the government would no longer need to know the intimate details of each taxpayer's financial assets. Mandatory coffee and Dunkin’ Donuts in the private sector
A Democratic Congressman in Florida wants to force employers to pay for vacations! Having just concluded our three week east cost trip in Central Florida we stopped at a Dunkin’ Donut shop to pick up some of those high calorie, but great tasting, doughnuts before our flight back to LAX. We made that selection for two reasons. First. There are no Dunkin’ Donut shops in CA. Second. An editorial that I found in the Orlando Sentinel last week entitled “Reason takes a holiday.” Every elected official should be commended for looking out for his or her district. In this case we read that tourism in Orlando was in the toilet. Having flown to Orlando many time in the past decade I could not believe that we did not have to stand in any long lines as we went through the TSA checkpoint before boarding our flight home. Let me address the suggestion of “first term House Democrat Alan Grayson of Orlando” who is proposing legislation that would compel every employer “provide paid vacations for their employees.” Note: The Sentinel confirms that “three-quarters of all U. S. workers already get paid vacations.” “Mr Grayson’s office said his proposal would ‘help rejuvenate the American economy’ by improving productivity and generating more business for U.S. travel and tourism industries once everyone has so much free time on their hands.” Let us think about his proposal. As stated above I read that Orlando’s tourism has dropped substantially due to the recession and, Representative Grayson represents Orlando. So he proposes some self serving legislation that if passed would impact every other state in the nation. The editorial goes on to state that “In making the case for his proposal, Mr. Grayson’s office linked the lack of paid vacation law in the United states to higher anxiety and depression, lower life expectancy–even a falling dollar. “We’re still wondering why tooth decay and high humidity weren’t included.” His office has”pointed out that the United States in the only industrialized country without a minimum annual -leave statute. The Sentinel responds by stating that “You might find that a convincing argument if you believe America should take its economic policy cues from Europe and Asia–including communist China, one of the countries cited by the congressman for his mandatory paid vacations.” Representative Grayson doesn’t understand the free enterprise system. In the early 80’s, prior to their outsourcing to Asia, our corporation conducted business with several major electronic firms in Silicon Valley. We witnessed as these firms would hire and train technical staff only to lose them to competitors in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and San Jose, CA who offered better wage and benefit packages including gymnasiums for their employees to use on their lunch hours. Some would host Friday afternoon “happy hours” just to keep their employees from jumping ship. My point is that the “free market,” and not any state or federal mandate, should establish what fringe benefits employers provide for their employees with full knowledge that any “benefits” comes at a cost that must be passed onto the consumer. The Sentinel states “What’s next? Requiring companies to provide coffee and doughnuts? ..We’re all for regulations that address basic health and safety for workers and guarantee them a minimum wage. But government would be meddling way to deep by dictating employers’ vacation policies.” Juice readers. Where do we draw the line with government meddling in the private sector? As I try to catch up with the news I recall commentary that the government will establish pay scales for firms accepting TARP funds. Questions. Did the TARP recipients have that knowledge prior to accepting said funds? Should big brother micromanage these struggling private sector firms? Can any Democrat stop Jerry Brown from becoming our next Governor?
The only thing we know for sure about L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is that he knows how to score with female reporters. I suppose if he was running for President of Viagra he would win in a landslide. But seriously, how can anyone look at this guy as a legitimate gubernatorial candidate, in a state as troubled as California? He is nothing more than a horn dog masquerading as a politician. So what about his counterpart in San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom? Sigh. He is best known for sleeping with his campaign manager’s wife, while she was in a drug induced stupor, and of course those obnoxious Prop. 8 radio ads, where he was cast as the ultimate liberal bad guy. He is a walking “no se puede.” So can any other Democrats take out former and perhaps future Governor Jerry Brown, who is currently our State Attorney General? The guy who had the best chance of doing so, Lt. Governor John Garamendi, is now running for a seat in Congress. I don’t know of any other Democrats who are running for Governor. The blue cupboard is bare. If you are a decline to state voter, you are really screwed then because the California Republican Party won’t let you vote in their primary. So even if you wanted to vote for moderate former Congressman Tom Campbell, you can’t. You have to pick a Democrat - or some unknown third party candidate who has no chance of winning. If I had to pick a Democrat I guess I would have to go with retread Jerry Brown. But I have serious reservations about the 70 year old. “Brown’s website says not a word about the budget mess. Nor does his Facebook site, although it does feature a recipe for his mother Bernice’s banana cake. (”Make the cake the day before serving,” the site recommends.),” according to the L.A. Times. I can’t vote for Villaraigosa or Newsom, no way. I don’t much like Brown, and would rather vote for Campbell, but as a registered Libertarian I can’t. I don’t know if the Libertarians will field a gubernatorial candidate. One pick who would be intriguing is recently retired Orange County Superior Court Jim Gray, but he has not shown an interest in running for high office again. And he is better off running for a local office in Orange County at some point in the near future. So we’re stuck with Brown. Sigh. Is that really the best the Democrats can come up with? Why are no Democratic women running? Why is Villaraigosa the only minority candidate? What sort of selection is this for the supposedly diverse Democratic Party? What a joke! Maybe they should let us vote for “None of the Above?” Why did SAUSD Superintendent cover up the abuse of a special ed student?
Jane Russo might be a good chauffeur, but she is a terrible school superintendent! I ran into a lady today who was quite mad at me. “Jane Russo is a nice lady,” she kept saying. Well, that might be the case, but time again Russo has proven that she is completely inept. Case in point, what would YOU do if a school district employee got busted for abusing a special education student? You think you might let the parents know? And if the parents warned you about the guy in the first place, wouldn’t you have done something about it? You would have done something about it, but not Russo. “Yesterday, Saddleback High special-ed assistant Alonso Manuel Gonzalez plead guilty to child abuse and endangerment in a case that has dragged on since November yet has provoked no public or parental notification from Santa Ana Unified High School District officials,” according to the O.C. Weekly’s Navel Gazing blog. We wrote about his previously, and compared how Russo handled this to how the Capistrano Unified School District handled a similar matter - Capo officials reported the incident to the Register. I was so mad when Russo was hired - the SAUSD school board allegedly conducted a national search, only to hire a former assistant to inept former SAUSD Superintendent Al Mijares. Russo had ZERO experience as a Superintendent. She had ZERO experience turning around troubled school districts. She has NO doctorate in education. And she is paid a quarter million a year! And she still has no clue how to do her job. Honestly, how can anyone give this lady a free pass after she bungled this case? She STILL hasn’t told the parents about the arrest and plea bargain of Manuel Gonzalez! How will things ever get better at the SAUSD with an inept, secretive bozo like Russo in charge? Meg Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign is over!
“Gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman got a lesson in watching her words at her Tustin town hall meeting with Sen. John McCain on May 29. An unscripted comment about the shortcomings of citizen initiatives got little attention at the time, but last week the issue ripped through the internet and talk radio as she was attacked for wanting to take away voters’ power to directly enact laws,” according to Martin Wisckol, over at the O.C. Register. What is up with these Republicanns? Whitman’s comments have finished her before she left the starting gate! She is toast…you cannot speak up against the initiative process - which will of course be construed as being pro-taxes, without angering the anti-tax voters. Clearly Whitman has forgotten the success of Prop. 13 - in fact I would bet she wants to undo it. It is looking more and more like Jerry Brown will be our next Governor. Sotomayor: Foot in Mouth Syndrome - A Case Study
News Flash! 61% of Americans support the Death Penalty in the United States. And Obama has nominated a candidate for the Supreme Court who thinks that 61% are bigots and haters.
ROFLMAO!!! This from the philosophical cult that thinks the GENOCIDE of 13 million black babies is fine, but wants to keep murderers ALIVE. Now, nothing has come out yet on Sotomayors views on abortion, but would Daily Kos fanaticals or any of the other murderous minority fascists be silent if they weren’t SURE Obama had checked? How wackadoo can the Democrats keep getting? I’m expecting them to start dancing with snakes in the hall of congress and declaring I LOVE CASTRO as a National Holiday. What a wierd crew we have running this country! Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.Schwarzenegger nails it - the problem is public employees, not immigrants
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is finally coming to his senses. On Friday he “disputed claims that illegal immigrants caused California’s $24.3 billion deficit, while he praised their economic contributions and said he is “happy” they have access to services,” according to the Sacramento Bee. And Arnold nailed the real problem - which is not immigrants but rather overpaid public employees, “The Republican governor, answering wide-ranging questions from The Bee’s editorial board and its readers, also vented about roadblocks to his authority posed by political foes and warned that government can’t sustain the current level of “unbelievable benefits” for public-sector workers.” There you go. The fact is, immigrants work damn hard doing the dirtiest jobs. What they need is another amnesty so they can open bank accounts and start buying stuff, as well as paying taxes. But those public employee pensions are a real problem. They may yet bankrupt our state…not to mention our cities and counties. Yet another San Bernardino Republican busted for political corruption
Mike Richman was a GOP blogger, and a partisan hack, now he is busted! Surprise, surprise. More Republican corruption. “Mike Richman, a top aide to Board of Equalization member Michelle Steel and the target of a San Bernardino County lawsuit alleging that he and others engaged in political work on government time, has resigned,” according to the Riverside Press Enterprise. Steel is married to Shawn Steel, the former Chairman of the California Republican Party. He has been trying to turn her into the next big thing for years. It looks like the wheels are falling off their little red wagon now! “Richman, a political consultant, oversaw Steel’s Republican primary campaign in 2006. He became Steel’s chief of staff Nov. 1 and earned $122,424 a year.” Why would some political hack be qualified to serve as a Chief of Staff for a member of the Board of Equalization? I found this information about Richman over at the awful Republican blog, the Flash Report, where, of course, Richman was a blogger:
San Bernardino Republican Party members must be ecstatic over the news that JohnsonClark Associates Political Director Mike Richman will be joining the county’s central committee as its new Executive Director. Richman will serve part time in this position, while also beginning his own consulting firm serving political and public affairs clients. Many of you know Mike Richman from the outstanding work he did in 2006, when he, in his role with JohnsonClark, managed Michelle Steel’s successful Board of Equalization primary campaign and then served as Deputy Campaign Manager for Steve Poizner’s bid for State Insurance Commissioner, which Poizner ultimately won. He also was heavily involved in the election of Anthony Adams, who is the Assemblyman from the High Desert, and one of this website’s State Capitol bloggers. The San Bernardino County Republican Party Executive Director position has traditionally served as a launching pad for some of today’s most influential Republican policymakers, such as retired State Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte. As the Party’s new Executive Director, Richman will replace San Bernardino County FlashReport correspondent Adam Aleman, who is leaving the post after guiding the Party’s central committee through three statewide election cycles. Aleman is serving as a lead assistant to County Assessor Bill Postmus. (Fear not, Adam will continue to blog for us!) Too funny! Richman replaced Adam Aleman as Executive Director of the San Bernardino GOP, and sure enough Aleman got busted last year! And Aleman’s boss, Bill Postmus, ended up resigning as San Bernardino Assessor after we all found out about his drug use and other peccadilloes. Aleman in fact got busted for blogging about Postmus while on the clock at the Assessor’s office, “Adam Aleman, former assistant assessor under Postmus, was San Bernardino County editor for RedCounty.com. The Hueston Report, a county ordered investigation of Postmus and his associates released Tuesday, accuses Aleman of using county money to purchase technology for the Web site and paying county employees to write for the site and spend time “e-mail blasting,” according to the San Bernardino Sun. You have to love those red-faced clowns in San Bernardino. What a bunch of corrupt hacks! So nice to see them all getting dragged off in chains… Across Europe Leftist Parties Are Losing Clout, Losing Power
A recession always leaves leftists thinking they can make the argument about the “failings” of capitalism or free market forces. But there is a different pattern emerging during this global recession. In France, 20% say they will vote Socialist. In Germany 26% say they will vote for the venerable Social Democrats. The reasons? Several. One reason is that as Europe tipped into recession, the right moved left — appropriating some of the left’s long-standing economic policies, including nationalizations and bailouts. Another, there used to be clear fault lines between the parties. Globalization helped change that. With nations and companies vying on a global scale, it has become difficult for a country to separate the effects of public spending and budget deficits from its labor costs and capacity to compete in export markets. The key moment came as far back as 1994, some political analysts say, when the World Trade Organization was created and much of the world began shifting to a more free-market economy. As the Leftist parties sought out moderate voters and had to cut social programs to get deficits under control, the radical anti-capitalists left the Left and formed their own parties. We can only hope the rabid socialists follow the same path here. As Europe goes, so goes…?
PARIS — The economic recession should have meant easy votes for Europe’s left-wing movements, longtime critics of unchecked capitalism. Yet as Europe goes to the polls, left-leaning parties across the continent are looking likely to falter. That’s true both for those in government, such as in the U.K. and Spain, and in the opposition — such as France, Germany and Italy. France’s Socialist Party is trying hard to rally voters ahead of Sunday’s European parliamentary elections. “Let’s unite with all the French who contest free market, unfair policies that aim at deregulating everything,” party leader Martine Aubry urged at a pre-election rally. Yet less than 20% of voters say they plan to cast their ballot for the Socialist Party, according to recent surveys. That would be a weak performance considering France’s main opposition party got 29% of the votes in the last European parliamentary elections. In Germany, the Social Democrats are expected to get only around 26% on Sunday, consistent with their low opinion-poll ratings ahead of Germany’s national elections in September. Italy’s center-left Partito Democratico is expected to get a similar percentage. One reason is that as Europe tipped into recession, the right moved left — appropriating some of the left’s long-standing economic policies, including nationalizations and bailouts. French conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, helped recapitalize French banks, earmarked six billion euros for the auto sector and lashed out at “rascal bosses” with huge pay packages. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel has planted her conservative camp firmly in the political center. Ms. Merkel has largely given up her former program of market-oriented reforms, and has gradually approved various kinds of state intervention to protect workers during the current recession, from bailing out carmaker Opel to subsidizing payrolls at companies whose export orders have collapsed. Even before that, right-wing parties across the continent began offering more pragmatic approaches to policy than they had traditionally done. In the past decade, conservative parties introduced competition or privatized some public services in France, Germany and Italy — but they refrained from dismantling the health-care and public transport services cherished by voters. In the past, there was a clear fault line between Europe’s left-wing and right-wing parties. The left called for more social welfare programs and public spending. The right wanted the state not to interfere in market forces. Globalization helped change that. With nations and companies vying on a global scale, it has become difficult for a country to separate the effects of public spending and budget deficits from its labor costs and capacity to compete in export markets. The key moment came as far back as 1994, some political analysts say, when the World Trade Organization was created and much of the world began shifting to a more free-market economy. “The WTO marked the triumph of the market economy,” says Dominique Reynié, head of Paris-based Foundation for Political Innovation. “Since then, the left has been unable to propose another route.” The U.K.’s Labour Party stood as an exception when, under Tony Blair, it tried to shape a middle road. But Mr. Blair had inherited a deeply deregulated economy from the hands of previous conservative leaders, state coffers swelled during an economic boom, and he “had room to increase public spending and hire state workers,” Mr. Reynié said. His successor, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has struggled to find a similar compromise way amid Europe’s falling financial fortunes. In some European countries, left-wing parties have failed to maintain a broad electoral base and ended up fractured and battling with one another. In Germany, the Social Democrats have suffered from a long-term decline that’s linked to the decline in their unionized, working-class base, says Manfred Göllner, head of opinion-polling institute Forsa in Berlin. Under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005, the party tried to win new, middle-class voters by marrying social justice with economic efficiency. But that fell apart when Mr. Schröder was forced to cut social spending to bring budget deficits under control at a time of record unemployment. The result: The party split, with dissidents defecting to help form a new, anti-capitalist party called “The Left” in 2007. In some countries, the left has disintegrated into a myriad of groups. There have been so many defections from France’s Socialist Party that the country now has half-a-dozen left-leaning movements. They include the New Anti-Capitalist Party, a Trotskyite movement, and the Left Front, an alliance of Communists and Communist-leaning politicians. The Socialist Party is divided over whether it should tie up with the Greens or with the MoDem, a center-right movement. Italy’s left has never quite recovered from the fall, in early 2008, of a government supported by a tenuous coalition of nine separate left-leaning movements ranging from Catholics to hard-core communists. Now, most don’t believe the left will be a credible alternative to scandal-plagued Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right coalition for years to come. Some fear that the inability of many European left-wing parties to attract voters is a cause — not just a symptom — of a rise among parties on the far right. “When people fear that they are not protected by their governments, they go back to nationalism,” said Anthony Wedgwood Benn, a retired U.K. Socialist lawmaker. —Stacy Meichtry in Rome contributed to this report. Write to David Gauthier-Villars at David.Gauthier-Villars@wsj.com and Marcus Walker at marcus.walker@wsj.com SAEA Elections, Uhhh…. Popularity Contest, Winners!
Among the cheers of “Woo Hoo! We WON!! WE WON!!!” Is the nagging question, “Who is the most popular SAEA candidate winner from this past election?” Please vote for your favorite. I’m voting for the double-dipper, Jennifer. Who could resist a union two-fer election special! |
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